GATE: A Tale of Strategic Resources
by WandererFuanac
Summary: Private Ian has found himself assigned to a joint Army-JSDF taskforce to investigate the other side of the Gate. Unfortunately for him, not everything is as simple as it seems. Wars will be fought, battles will be won and lost, and Ian will have to deal with crises both internal and external. A more critical take on GATE.
1. A Slow Start

**Chapter 1**

I woke up like I usually did; sleep deprived and ready to get the day over with. Even with the occasional upsets, army life had become an arduous chore. It was a few hours later before I heard. The news came as an announcement over the loudspeaker.

"Attention all servicemen, we've been placed on high alert due to a terrorist attack in Tokyo."

The reactions on my fellow soldiers' faces were mildly shocked at most, these types of attacks had become commonplace. Luckily, my routine remained boring. However the news told a much more interesting story. "A NEW FRONTIER" claimed one Japanese article. "OVER 50 THOUSAND DEAD" said one from the US.

"Must remind you of college." said Glenn, one of my friends on the base.

"Nah, I never wrote for these sites." I said.

"Cmon Ian, don't tell me that there wasn't a section in your journalism class about clickbait." said Glenn.

"Maybe… But it wasn't called that." I said.

"Really? Because I seem to remember an article called "Ten ways to get a real-life waifu"."

"That article was one of the many reasons I didn't become a journalist."

"And now we're stuck here."

"Pretty much."

That was the extent of most of my conversations with Glenn. I'd met him in college and we'd been good friends ever since. In fact, he was the one who got me to join the military. I'd been having a bad time in my aforementioned journalism career and a one day he went up to me and said,

"Ian, I'm probably joining the army. Want to join? It's not like you have anything better to do."

Of course that's not exactly what he said, and it wasn't the only reason I quit journalism. Still, this conversation with him was what made me finally give up on my college career. And I really did have nothing better to do. Although I thought I had very good reasons, I was still very naive at the time. After some time in the army, due to random chance, Glenn had been assigned to the same base as me, although he wasn't in my unit.

Back on the base, life continued mostly as normal, with the news turning to speculation about the other side of the Gate instead of its immediate dangers. The headlines became more about, "A NEW RESOURCE WAR" which scared me far more than more than ill-equipped Romans, or whatever the invaders were. In fact, the atmosphere of the base grew grimmer as the Japanese Diet deliberated on possible courses of action. It was eventually decided that the land beyond the Gate would be designated as Japanese territory, letting the JSDF wage war against the "terrorists" in "Japan". This too did not sit well with me. So it was with great trepidation that I walked to the office of my superior officer. The man could be best be described as brief; brief in height, and brief on words. I saluted him.

"Private Bader, at ease." said sergeant Fee, who also had a brief last name.

"Yes sir."

"You've been assigned to the JSDF base on Okinawa, you're to prepare to leave by 0700 tomorrow." He handed me a folder, "Details can be found here, good luck."

"Of course sir."

I saluted and left. That had been a, and I hate to say it, brief conversation. I went back to my bed to read the packet.

The packet, like many world changing objects came in an unmarked manila folder. Well it wasn't quite unmarked, on closer inspection I noticed a faint Army watermark on one corner. Inside the folder there was a large CLASSIFIED stamp on the first page of a packet. Inside the packet, there was a short message:

PRIVATE BADER. YOU HAVE BEEN RE-ASSIGNED TO THE JSDF-USPACOM JOINT OPERATIONS TASK FORCE. PLEASE PROCEED TO **XXXXXXXXXXXX**. ON **XXXXXX** AT 1000. DISCLOSURE OF PLACES AND DATES TO INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT CLEARANCE WILL LEAD TO A COURT MARTIAL.

I was very confused by this message, and I had every right to be. I hadn't had any reason to believe that I'd be reassigned so why had this happened? Why had I been assigned to this secret mission so suddenly? On my way out the next day I said goodbye to my friends. Glenn may have guessed something was up, but he didn't let it on. This wasn't the first time I'd said goodbye to him after all.

The trip over to the base was uneventful, as one would hope for a super secret classified mission. Luckily the army had arranged helicopter transport for me, so I didn't have to drive through rush hour traffic. I'd experienced it on my days off before, and it'd been way more than I was used to. Upstate NY rarely had more than a steady stream of traffic, unless you went down to NYC. I was thinking about all of this as my very loud transport craft landed on the roof of the JSDF base.

* * *

Welcome to chapter 1! Chapter updates will come soon.


	2. Meeting More People

The army is designed to break you. It's designed to test the limits of your physical and mental ability in order to prepare you for a time where you will be tested to your utmost, in combat.

This was the general idea of the speech I got from my new base commander, captain Hamamoto. I'd gotten this speech before of course. It was the kind of thing that superior officers liked to do when you were assigned to them to show you that, "Yes, you're still in the army, and you'd better follow my orders if you want to get through this."

Hamamoto continued,

"Someday, when the Diet and Congress get their act together we're going to be heading to the Special Region." he cleared his throat, "And when that happens, I expect each and every one of you to be the best damn soldiers you can be. I expect you to serve your country faithfully."

"Yes sir!" we saluted him.

Of course this speech was only to the American part of the task force. The commander, I assume would repeat his speech to the Japanese contingent in their native language.

Over the next weeks, I made an effort to relearn some Japanese, which I'd studied previously during my weeb period in my teens. I'd forgotten the exact reason I learned it. Even back then, translated anime wasn't that hard to find. I guess I just liked the language. I didn't even try to learn kanji. The strange symbols plastered around the base would forever remain a mystery to me.

The base itself was what you would expect from a military base, namely it made mostly of concrete and was designed with practicality in mind. The base I was on was a fairly large complex of barracks, recreation, and training areas. Often, at the end of my day, I would go and sit down on one of the couches in the recreation area to watch the news. I was not alone in doing this.

My fellow Americans were the kinds of people that you would expect to be assigned to a force like this. Many of them had seen combat before, or had special skills and training. One of them, Walker, was a language expert. These kinds of things are what made my inclusion in the force all the more peculiar. Sure, I had some talent for learning languages, but I didn't actually know many, and hadn't tried to learn any in awhile. After one particularly grueling day of training I asked Walker why he thought I was here.

"Well, I guess your previous commander could've recommended you?" he said.

"That doesn't make any sense." I said.

"Really? I guess they could've wanted you gone."

"I wasn't that bad of a soldier, some on!"

"Well we're all going to the Special Region now, so it doesn't really matter why you were chosen."

"I guess…"

Being pragmatic has its merits, but they're diminished when you know that you'll be put in danger.

Although the information I'd received on the invaders had shown the bulk of their soldiers to be unthreatening, I was still concerned about the dragons. If we were caught on the other side without the proper weapons or support they could be dangerous. In fact, magic as a whole was very concerning to me. I had no idea of how far it went. If the invaders had something so fantastical as dragons, who knows what else they had?

My routine of training and news watching continued, and I eventually met all of the members of my unit. Again, the Americans were the types of people you would you expect for this unit. The people the JSDF sent were… Different. There was a very short woman named Shino, newly famous on the base for her martial arts skills. Perhaps I should say infamous, she did have a temper after all. There was also a perverted sergeant, one Takeo Kurata, whose weird cat girl fetish seemed to come up way too much in normal conversation.

Even their commanding officer, first lieutenant Itami was way more laid-back than one would expect for someone of his rank. He too, like Kurata, was an otaku. I learned about this when I mentioned the doujinshi festival that was canceled when the attack happened. I'd heard of it before.

 _"Really! I didn't think you knew." he said._

 _"Well, I know." I said._

 _"I was going there when we were attacked." he said._

 _"How many of these do you go to?"_

 _"I'll be going to the winter event."_

Itami was definitely an interesting person. Although he sometimes had trouble understanding my attempts at speaking Japanese.

* * *

Finally some non-OC characters! The conversation between Itami and Ian was in Japanese, that's why I simplified the language, italicized the words, and added a small misunderstanding. Just so you know, I'm not going to use honorifics unless absolutely necessary. The next chapter is coming at some point.


End file.
